A Letter To The Younger Me

I know you feel broken right now but over the next year you’ll find pieces of yourself in places you never thought to look. You’ll even find pieces you didn’t know were missing. But above all you’ll find the kind of happiness you could once only dream of.

Be careful who you talk to about your pain during this time and the impossible decision you took months to make. They cannot understand the darkest parts of your mind, or maybe they just don’t want to. They cannot imagine how it feels to lie beside the man you thought you’d love forever and have nothing but emptiness in your heart. They do not know what it is to hold him as he breaks and to feel the slow burn of self-hatred twist inside you.

Moving back home will not be easy but you already knew that. The nights will be long and you’ll ache for his warmth beside you. The days won’t be much easier but you’ll be grateful for the quiet presence of your mom. You’ll wish to be a young girl again so you can curl into her on the couch and have her stroke your hair and on the really difficult days you’ll give into your vulnerabilities. You’ll smile at her with a tear-stained face as she brings you endless cups of tea and makes you runny eggs with the toast cut just how you like it. But on the other days, oh the other days will be so much worse. You’ll scream and shout and say all kinds of terrible things because the world is a terrible place and plans don’t ever go the way they’re meant to. You’ll argue with her the way you argue with your tormented mind and you’ll cry yourself to sleep. You’ll feel like you’re going backwards and you’ll wonder if you’ll ever start moving again.

You’ll discover that your greatest love in life is the touch of your pen to paper and the freedom you feel when the ink flies across the white canvas. Words will save you. They’ll help you make sense of the world, if only for a little while.

And then there’s him. The man who changed everything. The man who you fell for in a matter of days. Your need for him will grow inside you like a wild flower, thorny and imperfect, it’s destruction as addictive as its beauty. The tears you lose on the drive home from seeing him, and the words you shout at the windshield because you cannot say them to his face, are nothing to be ashamed of. You’ll hate him most days for what he’s done to you, you’ll give up and you’ll give in and you’ll refuse to accept that the sparks which fly between you mean nothing. He won’t make it easy though. You’ll lose yourself in loving him. You’ll fight for him until you run out of air, until you run out of hope but you’ll do it because even on your darkest days, you know, the world has secured a place for you, and it has.

So it won’t be easy, this journey you’re about to embark on. There will be days when you sit in your sweats eating pizza and binge watching Greys Anatomy, and that’s okay. You’ll learn that you do not need a man to be strong. Your strength comes from within.

You’ll learn that choosing not to settle but to chase after the right person and the dreams which keep you up at night is fearless and inspiring. You’ll learn that some “friends” are only there for the laughs and the Friday night cocktails. They cannot handle the broken parts of you. You’ll learn that your best friend is a gift. She will hold your hand when you feel like you’re disappearing and you will thank the universe for her presence and her love.

It won’t be easy but I promise you, it will be worth it. You’re meant for so much more than a mediocre love and a mediocre life. You can be your own hero, and you are.